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The National Music of America. 133
tained. This simple fact has been overlaid by considerable nonsense. One investigator, (?)' for example, gives the following' words as the regular Dutch version of the
song:
" Yanker didel, doodel, down; Didel, dudel, lanter, Yanke viver, voover vown Botermilk and tather."
Which is consummate gibberish and belongs to no known language. It is probable that the silly lines were invented out of the whole cloth, as an appendix to the fact that the Dutch possess the melody.
Just as this volume is going to press the author is enabled, through the kindness of M. Jules Koopman, travelling in Holland, to trace this theory of Dutch origin more definitely. The first period of the melody is quite familiar to Dutch musicians, and has been used in Holland from time immemorial |
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1 LittelPs Living Age, August, 1861. |
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